Jesus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

This life on earth provides joys and pains for everyone, whether we believe in God or not. However, if God has chosen to adopt us as His beloved children, we will experience an additional kind of suffering this world will never know. These pains that spring from taking up our cross daily in order to die to self are by no means an end in itself. As painful as such periods are, there is a goal ahead to which God will surely bring us.
As I was sitting at the hairdresser this morning, I would read several entries on “Dying to Self” on the internet. It dawned on me that only those who experienced such a process were really inclined to write more detailed about it. Or to put if more humorously as A.W. Tozer did,

“Among the plastic saints of our times, Jesus has to do all the dying, and all we want to hear is another sermon about his dying.”

Seeing myself as such a plastic saint, too, which means I would have never chosen to die to self unless God had given me a foretaste of the things to come, I know today that God’s power alone can help us to pursue things our natural man would have never aimed at. As for the consequences of dying to self and being raised again to a really New Life IN Christ, we will finally see that we did not lose anything which had been worth being kept at all. Everything our old self gives into spiritual death, will be handed back to us on a completely new level as Jesus promised here,

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Mt 10:39 ESV)“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (Jn 10:10 ESV)

If we have walked with Him through the valley of the shadow death, we will suddenly see the light of life as we have never seen it before. Or in other words, i.e. our Lord’s,

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (Jn 8:12 ESV)

Regarding the crisis from death to life which all of us experience(d) or will experience sooner or later, I offer you a longer, but hopefully helpful excerpt by T.A. Sparks who explained it more detailed and most certainly from his own experience, too. Here you are.

How does this life get into us, this light of life? The Lord Jesus says that death must take place, a death to what we are in ourselves, a death to our own life, a death to a life apart from Him. We must go down with Him into death, and there, under the act of the Spirit of God in union with Christ buried, there is a transmission of His life to us, and He, coming up no longer merely as a single grain of wheat, comes up manifold in every one of us. It is the miracle that is going on every year in the natural realm, and it is just exactly the principle by which the Lord gets into us. You see the necessity of our ceasing to have a life apart from the Lord, the necessity of our letting that life of ours go absolutely. That is a crisis at the beginning, a real crisis. Sooner or later, it has to be a crisis.

Some may say, I have not had that crisis. For me becoming a Christian was a very, very simple thing. As a child, I was simply taught, or, at sometime I simply expressed my personal faith in the Lord Jesus in some way, and from that time I belonged to the Lord; I am a Christian! Are you moving on in the growing fullness of the revelation of the Lord Jesus? Are you? Have you an open heaven? Is God in Christ revealing Himself to you in ever greater wonder and fullness? Is He? I am not saying that you do not belong to the Lord Jesus, but I am saying to you that the unalterable basis of an open heaven is a grave, and a crisis at which you come to an end of your own self-life.

It is the crisis of real experimental identification with Christ in His death, not now for your sins, but as you. Your open heaven depends upon that. It is a crisis. And so with not one or two but with many this has been the way. The truth is this, that they were the Lord’s children; they knew Christ, they were saved, they had no doubt about that; but then the time came when the Lord, the Light of Life, showed to them that He not only died to bear their sins in His body on the tree, but He Himself represented them in the totality of their natural life, to put it aside. It was the man, and not only his sins, that went to the Cross. That man is you, that man is me: and many, after years of being Christians, have come to that tremendous crisis of identification with Christ as men, as women, as a part of the human race; not only as sinners, but as a part of a race; natural men, not unregenerate, but natural men, all that we are in our natural life. Many have come to that crisis, and from that time everything has been on a vast, a vaster scale than ever before in the Christian life. There has been the open heaven, the enlarged vision, the light of life in a far greater way.

How does it come about? Just like that, and that crisis is a crisis for us all. If you have not had that crisis, you ask the Lord about it. Mark you, if you are going to have that transaction with the Lord, you are asking for something, you are asking for trouble; for, as I said before, this natural man dies hard; he clings tenaciously, he does not like being put aside. Look at that grain of wheat. When it has fallen into the ground, look at what happens to it. Do you think it is pleasant? What is happening? It is losing its own identity. You cannot recognize it. Take it out and have a look at it. Is this that lovely little grain of wheat I put into the ground? What an ugly thing it has become! It has lost all its own identity, lost its own cohesiveness; it is all falling to pieces. How ugly! Yes, that is what death does. This death of Christ as it is wrought in us breaks up our own natural life. It scatters it, pulls it to pieces, takes all its beauty away. We begin to discover that, after all, there is nothing in us but corruption. That is the truth. Falling apart, we are losing all that beauty that was there from the natural point of view, perhaps, as men saw it. It is no pleasant thing to fall into the ground and die. That is what happens.

“But if it die . . .” “If we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him” (Rom 6:8). We shall share His life, take another life, and then a new form is given, a new life; not ours, but His. It is a crisis. I do urge upon you to have real dealings with the Lord about this matter. But if you do, expect what I have said, expect that you are going to fall to pieces, expect that the beauty you thought was there will be altogether marred; expect to discover that you are far more corrupt than ever you thought you were; expect that the Lord will bring you to a place where you cry, Woe is me for I am undone! But then the blessing that will come will just be this—O Lord, the best thing that can happen for me is that I shall die! And the Lord will say, That is exactly what I have been working at, I cannot glorify that corruption. “This corruptible must put on incorruption” (1 Cor 15:53), and that incorruption is the germ of that Divine life in the seed which yields its own life up, that is transmitted from Him. God is not going to glorify this humanity. He is going to make us like Christ’s glorious body. That is far too deep, and too much ahead, but our point is that there has to be this crisis if we are coming to the glory, God’s end.

I do believe that TAS in his article wrote about what others, esp. John of the Cross, called the Dark Night of the Soul, here particularly the Dark Night of the Spirit, where God and Jesus after having revealed their love to their beloved child, maybe not only for years but even for decades, eclipse everything of which the natural man with his perceptive faculty could ever cling to. Here we go through a spiritually very dark night where we receive the faith OF Jesus Christ. Satan can hardly tempt us now because we lose all good feelings just as we more and more lose all our bad feelings as well. Our self-will dies daily and eventually God enables us to live His life here on earth as a new creation that always lives IN Christ. God’s will will be ours when He has made us completely one with Himself. Or as our Lord once put it,

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Mt 6:10 ESV)

Susanne, in all honesty, the Lord had me go back and read this article of yours again and again. I have had to search my heart and ask the Lord about this great crisis that Sparks is writing about, “Have I truly come to this crisis in my life?” Sparks wrote:

“It is the crisis of real experimental identification with Christ in His death, not now for your sins, but as you. Your open heaven depends upon that. It is a crisis…The truth is this, that they were the Lord’s children; they knew Christ, they were saved, they had no doubt about that; but then the time came when the Lord, the Light of Life, showed to them that He not only died to bear their sins in His body on the tree, but He Himself represented them in the totality of their natural life, to put it aside. It was the man, and not only his sins, that went to the Cross. That man is you, that man is me: and many, after years of being Christians, have come to that tremendous crisis of identification with Christ as men, as women, as a part of the human race; not only as sinners, but as a part of a race; natural men, not unregenerate, but natural men, all that we are in our natural life. Many have come to that crisis, and from that time everything has been on a vast, a vaster scale than ever before in the Christian life. There has been the open heaven, the enlarged vision, the light of life in a far greater way.”

Jesus said, “And he that takes not his cross, and follows after me, is not worthy of me. He that finds his life shall lose it: and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 10:38-39 KJ2000)

Sparks says that the evidence of a man or woman who has gone through this crisis of letting go of their current human life and giving it over to be crucified with Christ is an open heaven, an enlarged vision… they have come into the Light of Life in a far greater way. I am not sure I can say this. In fact there are things of this world in my heart, things I hope to have in this Adamic life, that I have hung onto that have NOT fallen into the ground and died. As I seek to find my life, I am denying myself of an open heaven, that enlarged vision, that heavenly light and the depth of its spiritual life IN Christ. Sparks continues…

“…that crisis is a crisis for us all. If you have not had that crisis, you ask the Lord about it. Mark you, if you are going to have that transaction with the Lord, you are asking for something, you are asking for trouble; for, as I said before, this natural man dies hard; he clings tenaciously, he does not like being put aside.”

I have prayed what church folks call “those dangerous prayers” before… you know, those prayers that you pray when you get serious about God in your life and stand to lose everything in this life if you pray them? One of these prayers put me through a death that cost me fourteen of the most productive years of my life in which I was put into spiritual dormancy. During it I could not enjoy my Christian walk and fellowship with Christ and I could not prosper or find joy in the world, either. It was hell to say the least while He rooted out of me a lot of my dead religious ways.

It seems that there is more than one crisis required of us. Jesus is always asking us, “Peter, do you love me more than these” …these things associated with the world? St. John of the Cross wrote about two such crises. The first led to the “dark night of the soul” and after that the second led to “the dark night of the spirit.” After reading about the dark night of the soul and seeing that my 14 years of death was what that was about, I then read about a second death, the “dark night of the spirit” and I shut the book without completing it! I had all the dying for one lifetime that I wanted, “Thank you, God, but no thanks!” But here I am again, “Michael, do you love me more than these?”

I admit that I was always an anxious person who never dared to pray dangerous prayers. My most courageous prayer once was, “God, please, give me Your heart and let me love others like You do and see others as You see them.”

You were right about your observation that we might have many crises in our spiritual life and it’s not the same for everyone of us. What is comforting for me, esp. regarding the TAS quote, is the fact that we cannot die on our own. It is somehow a passive process of letting God do what needs to be done in His time. He is the One who finally leads us to the end of our rope, as I said in my reply to Wayne, in those areas of life where HE wants to change something. We may never forget that God always loves us just the way we are, not the way we will be (although that might be difficult to grasp at times).

This is trustworthy and true: GOD IS LOVE. ❤ And He is making all things new. Promise!

Dear Susanne, It seems that we LOVE Him because He first loves us. And what is God’s love? Isn’t it a total identification with the one who loves us and whom we love? HE takes our sins upon Himself as if they are His because of love. He identifies with our weaknesses and stands before the Father making intercession for us as if they are HIS weaknesses. As fallen Adam and Eve man became separated from God and there emerged an adversarial relationship where our ways were no longer His ways and our thoughts were no longer His thoughts. But His love for us grabs us and puts in us a longing to be in total identification with Him. Only a deep abiding love for our Lord Jesus can explain what Paul prayed in his letter to the Philippians.

“That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” (Philippians 3:10-12 RSVA)

We are called not only from our selfish disagreement with God, but into total agreement and identification with Christ through love. Someone once said, “True love runs toward pain.” It is interesting to watch fleshly people when it comes to a member of their family dying and going through great pain. Pain and death makes most people run the other way. My mother-in-law spent her last three months of her life dying of cancer in our home. Her husband dropped her off there because he could not stand it any longer. He rarely came to see her during that time, but was out doing his own thing. He was that kind of person who spent most of his life only doing what HE wanted to do and her income as an RN was what supported the family and household for many years while the income from his business was his to play with.

So we have this fallen nature at one end of the spectrum that runs from pain and death and then we have Christ at the other end who runs toward it, “…the cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?” (John 18:11 KJ2000). The love relationship that Paul had with Jesus made him not only want to know Jesus, but to totally identify with HIS sufferings, to know the depth of His death and it seems that this kind of heart change that embraces suffering and death because of love for a person is brought about by Christ’s resurrection power working deep within us. It changes us from temporal beings who fear pain and death into grace and love filled children of our Father in heaven. It is because of a deep abiding love for Jesus that we embrace the cross He has given each of us to carry, because it is a gift from the One we love.

You know I have had a rather long time where I lost any feelings that could be related to LOVE regarding God and Jesus. Not that it has changed that much right now, but meanwhile I see more and more that every good gift, including love, must come from above. There is no good thing inside me and that won’t ever change since I am also such a person that is inclined to run from pain and death. It seems to me that God somehow loves me, though (through a kind of invisible wall), but I cannot not say that I love Him yet. Still waiting on the miracle of “feeling” my love for Him again.

It appears to me that the change has begun inside me and I can watch what God has been doing when He leads me into different situation of which I know before how I normally re-act. Suddenly I see that certain negative feelings suddenly disappear into nirvana (anger, impatience, etc). Since I know that I cannot change my habits and my old nature ever, I wonder how subtly God did something inside me and I was not aware of it – at all. What a miraculous God we have, haven’t we…? 😉

Susanne, you wrote, “I wonder how subtly God did something inside me and I was not aware of it – at all. What a miraculous God we have, haven’t we…?”

Yes, you have just given me a deeper meaning to what Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven comes without outward observation for it is in your midst.” YES! What a miracle our transformations into the image of Christ really is!

Wow!! That Scripture really fits like a glove here. Thank you so much, Michael!
Indeed, it was not the first time that I said something and you supported it with the proper Bible verse. Your Biblical knowledge has been a great blessing to me, my dear brother! 🙂

Dying to self really can sound kind of scary and I suppose sometimes it is, but what it really means is dying to anger, envy, insecurity, fear, whatever self obsessed bits of angst plague us. Not unlike the words, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it,” the other paradox is that you often have to totally lose yourself, to really find yourself.

I used to have a fear that if I let go of myself, I would cease to exist, that there would be no “me,” anymore. Some people wonder if we are recognizable in heaven, if we have any individuality, and that concept plays into that fear, too. I really believe those fears are misplaced, when we do manage to let go of ourselves, we simply become a new creature, a better version of ourselves, more the way God intended us to be when he created us. So the “me,” or whatever you would call it, is still there, it is just freed from a lot of deception and damage, repaired of the wear and tear from the world.

Yes, Gabrielle, it can sound scary. Dying to anger, envy, etc., whatever you mentioned above, it seems to be a good thing, doesn’t it. But also, it appears to be so unimaginable until it really happens. 😛

That fear of no longer existing, I know it too. Reading all that Asian stuff about self disappearing into nirvana even increased those fears many years ago. As to the better version of ourselves, I do fully agree with your thoughts. And I am sure we will recognize one another in heaven since we will all have become what God created us to be and what we always hoped for but never achieved in our earthly bodies which are plagued by their imperfections due to aging and frail health.

Yes again, the ME will always be, only the source of self won’t be found in the old man but in the new creation that was born by God.

That T.A. Sparks quote was delicious. Thank you, Susanne, for sharing that with us.

I was watching a message the other day by Andrew Farley titled “Questions on Freedom, Part 2,” and one of the questions was on someone being saved as a child and then turning (as I did), and them returning (as I did), were they ever truly saved. As Andrew answered the question, I wept silently knowing my own personal history and the God behind, in the midst, and in front of it all. He always had me. Anyway, when my crisis came in the fall of 2007, well, the crisis started long before, it’s the slow fade, as Casting Crowns calls it. But, in the fall of 2007, when I reluctantly surrendered to Jesus, was in the churning chaos of a life lived for myself. What would follow this surrender has been the most horrific, most beautiful thing. It still is.

I watched (and posted) a video on Facebook last night on “The Great Boat Lift of 9/11.” A story I was not familiar with. Dozens of boats heard the call for help in rescuing people from the island of Manhattan as the towers fell and people were petrified. It was the greatest sea rescue on record. Half a million people in 9 hours. As the video plays on, there is smoke and debris billowing upwards from the evil, the horror, and in the midst of it…a rescue. This is grace, my friend. Of which I am most grateful.

Thank you for this post. And please excuse any typos, as I’m on my phone 🙂

Thank you, dear Becky, for sharing part of your story with us on here. I can truly say that God always had me, even through my countless doubts of Him being REAL, through all my sinning, through my turning away from Him – whatever. It seems to me that salvation is no problem from God’s point of view because He has known us before we were born and He sees us already as perfected, yet we need to take it all step by step since we are still limited by our perception of time (one thing after the other) and space.

Yes, that is true, all happens by grace, there is nothing which would be “man-made” regarding spiritual things. I will check out that video on your FB timeline as soon as possible.

We’ve all had periods of plastic sainthood and as believers we’ve had periods of dying to self. At time passes, the latter should increasingly overtake the former. That’s real maturity.

Dying to self is simply a metaphor for putting God and others before self. It’s a choice. It’s a spiritual death. I noticed that everyone posting comments is still breathing. If not, there’s a human connection to heaven that I’ve never heard about.

The real challenge is that many, if not most, believers have accumulated considerable head knowledge about the Bible and the Judeo-Christian life. Head knowledge alone is not a motivator. Convictions that produce motivation arise from a soul-deep level. Dying to self is a frightening thought at the head knowledge level. But at the soul-deep level dying to self is as natural as physical breathing. For Mother Theresa, dying to self was a lifestyle. But for many people today, pride interferes with dying to self in part, because pride blocks the flow of knowledge from the head to the soul. Pride, i.e. the me-first attitude, is a barrier to every form of Christian growth, including dying to self, because pride prevents us from putting God and others first. As they say at the end of radio editorials, “That’s my view, I welcome your’s.”

Spiritual death is indeed a choice. Although it is alone God’s spiritual power that finally kills the old Adam nature, we have our own free will and can resist His Spirit’s nudgings. If that were not possible, we would merely be puppets on God’s strings.

You made me laugh with the following statements. You wrote,

“I noticed that everyone posting comments is still breathing. If not, there’s a human connection to heaven that I’ve never heard about.”

😀

Pride…well, that is something that our old nature has been infected with. Even the apostle Paul needed a demon that tormented him so that he did not become boastful of his great revelations he had been given by God.

As for Mother Theresa, she truly was a woman who sacrificed her whole life for others. What seemed to be strange to me, though, was the fact that she had somehow lost the real connection to Jesus already in her earlier years of service (I read esp. her letters and journal entries about that). A Catholic priest told her that her feelings of disconnection might have come from having been in the dark night of the soul, too. But if so, she would have had her ups and downs and would eventually have been able to enjoy God’s presence more and more over time. Instead, she seemed to have struggled with deep depression over 50 years; maybe she was overworked as well. As I read her honest writings, I really had to cry. Alas, she was so dependent on the hierarchy in church and on a priest telling her what to do, that she missed hearing – that is my opinion – her Lord’s voice to keep pace with Him and to REST in His love. She could not feel love (neither God’s love for her nor love for her sisters), even for decades, as she confessed. That made me wonder what that poor woman really had to go through while others only saw the heroine in her.

I am using the WP “Chateau” Theme. If you want to add the widget “Community”, you need to open the WP Admin and follow the path “Dashboard/Appearance/Widgets”. On the left side you should see “Available Widgets” which are arranged in alphabetical order. You will detect “My Community” there under “M” (I dropped “My” on my blog, therefore you only read “Community” here). Now drag that widget to the sidebar where you want to see it on your blog. You can also customize it a bit by choosing how many users it should display (a few or lots) and decide if you only want to see your commenters and/or likers and /or followers in that place on your homepage. Then click on the SAVE button. DONE! 🙂

Thanks a bunch for that compliment, Michael! I like finding out how something works on the net, esp. regarding our blog sites. I adhere closely to the principle of trial and error here as you might know. 😉

Hi Susanne – Thank you for sharing this from TAS.
As someone has said: “I cannot, in my own nature give up the sin-nature any more than I can nail myself to the cross.” But that doesn’t seem to stop us from trying, does it? I struggled with this “dying to self” for many years until I started to simply focus on knowing Him more intimately. Reading the Word of God just to know Him – learning that everything He required of us is shrouded in grace (not legal commandments). Everything He requires from the believer is really a statement of what He wants to do in us if we will just believe it. Really, he just asks us to believe what He says and then rest in the knowledge that He will accomplish it without our help (and sometimes even when I am resisting Him!).

The sin of a Christian is the sin of not living up to what we are in Him – and this is the topic of confession in 1John 1:9. When a believer forgets who He is in Christ, he will not enjoy fellowship with God – and God is robbed of fellowship with the believer! The life we live on this earth is to be a life in union with Him – union life will never be a sinful life. So what does He do about that? He uncovers the self-life to us.
Don’t we just want that to die and crawl into a cave when we see that nasty old self-life? But He also discovers the Christ life to us. Did you know that resurrection power is more powerful than creation power? He reminds us of that and encourages us to believe it and receive it. One of my favorite passages in all of Scripture:

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with THE WORKING OF THE STRENGTH OF HIS MIGHT WHICH HE BROUGHT ABOUT IN CHRIST, WHEN HE RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD AND SEATED HIM AT THE RIGHT HAND IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES (Eph. 1:18-21). Ahhh! New Creation life at its best!!

“The believer’s enlightened faith follows effortlessly, because he now sees himself exactly where he has been positioned all along: “For you died [unto the old self-life, at Calvary], and your life [new creation, raised in His resurrection and ascension] is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). Now he can begin walking “in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).
When the Holy Spirit gives us adequate apprehension of our risen position, we are able spontaneously to reckon ourselves “alive unto God in Jesus Christ.” Thus we are drawn to the Source of our life, and there we learn to rest—and abide above!”
~Miles J Stanford

The difference in resurrection power and creation power is new to me as well. I’ve been mulling it over for a few weeks and understand it more and more as I meditate on Paul’s letters. For one thing, there seems to be such an outpouring of evil in recent times (like there was on the earth when Jesus was here) — a more powerful power makes sense. And think of it — Resurrection power has a constant flow in the lives of believers now (hadn’t thought of that before!).
It is very interesting to read what you said about Mother Theresa — having been raised as a Catholic, I’ve wondered what was truly motivating her. Very sad.

“Resurrection power has a constant flow in the lives of believers now (hadn’t thought of that before!)”

Neither hadn’t I…

It seems to me that as soon as something in us eventually died, His resurrection power can flow without hindrance into that very area and create new life, aka fruit.

Yes, having been raised as a Catholic as well, I read many (auto)biographies of mystics and saw that they all met more and more difficulties as they decided to listen to man (here to members of the hierarchy in the institutional church) more than to God’s still voice. Insofar I am grateful I read them since it helped me avoid doing the same mistakes again and again.

Very sad, Mother Theresa’s inner life, indeed. But meanwhile she is with the Lord and He certainly made her forget what had gone wrong in her life here on earth.

Susanne, you wrote, “It seems to me that as soon as something in us eventually died, His resurrection power can flow without hindrance into that very area and create new life, aka fruit.”

Wow! This is rich! What great insight. Creation abhors a vacuum, they say. Christ’s death working in us removes our old Adam from that place so that HE can come in reign there. The kingdom of God is only found where Christ reigns and with His reign comes newness of life. Amen!

“Creation abhors a vacuum” – I like that too! And what you said here nails it:

“The kingdom of God is only found where Christ reigns and with His reign comes newness of life.”

Yup, THERE is the kingdom of God, and only there! The rest is Satan’s realm although he is under God’s control, for sure. But in his area of competence, the devil may do what God allows him to do. Well, it is MUCH BETTER in the kingdom of God. No doubt!

Another beautiful post, Susanne. ❤ I am very fond of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, so will pass along something he said about sanctification:

“Sanctity, then, is not giving up the world. It is exchanging the world. It is a continuation of that sublime transaction of the Incarnation in which Christ said to man: ‘You give Me your humanity, I will give you My Divinity. You give Me your time, I will give you My Eternity. You give Me your bonds, I will give you My Omnipotence. You give Me your slavery, I will give you My Freedom. You give Me your death, I will give you My Life. You give Me your nothingness, I will give you My All.’ And the consoling thought throughout this whole transforming process is that it does not require much time to make us saints; it requires only much love.”

thanks Susanne -a word in season. . We can choose, i beleive somehow grace plays a part even in our choosing , to lay down our selflife, humble ourselves ,or He will lay it down for us. we can fall on the rock and be broken or the rock can fall on us and crush us. either way our selflife will be broken cause God resist the proud nature in us , for our own good , and loves His children to much to let it continue.but as we humble ourselves He gives us the very life of His Son , grace, so that we might be empowered to live a life , in holiness ,that is pleasing to Him. it’s this breaking that releases the light and life of His Son. can’t seem to get away from this scripture . death works in us that the life of Christ in us may be released to others,the same way His death released life to us ~ wayne

Yes, I too believe that without grace I would never have given in and letting God do as He wishes. The old Adam and Eve die hard and struggle until they have come to the end of their rope in all areas of life. It seems to me it needs some time until we realize that we truly cannot do anything apart from Him. Sometimes it’s like walking in circles through a spiritual wilderness. Maybe not for 40 years, but you never know how many circles are still ahead. 😛

As for the breaking… Yes, it feels as if God would break us into countless pieces and I can tell you that I never loved that – I hated it! But I also remember that John of the Cross wrote that God is always love, yet His light and our darkened human nature do not assort well with one another in the very beginning so that it feels at times as if God hates us and would even kill us. However, it’s only our perception of His light that is still darkened by those areas in us that need to be more and more enlightened.

I agree with Michael, that there is more than one crisis, or at least deeper levels perhaps. I have known the crisis TA Sparks talks about and it thoroughly broke me, but needfully. I thought I was doing Christianity, but it was religion – and yes, I was born again and saved at the time but not being discipled. No one teaches this place of being joined to Christ in His death any more. It’s frowned upon even to raise such an issue. No one wants to hear it. But the Holy Spirit leads us into ALL truth, not just fragments of truth. And Jesus, in both His Cross and His resurrection is ALL truth. I had a dream some years ago where I was sitting by an open grave waiting to die. I knew the grave was mine, but I had no idea how to die. In the dream I said ‘You will have to do this Lord, I don’t know how.” There was absolutely no sense of fear or sadness. What followed in my real earthly life was a period of deep crisis (even though I had already known crisis many years before), from which I am still emerging. TA Sparks is right in saying it’s the person who has to die, not just their sins. I read what you have posted here and identify with it. I believe it is more than dying to anger, envy, insecurity etc., though that is definitely its fruit. To me it is more about identification with the Beloved One. Like many things in Christ, it is mystery. I also believe it’s the difference between being ‘saved’ and becoming part of His Bride.

That is an amazing comment of yours. You share wise insights that clearly spring from your own experience with God over a long time. It is interesting you mentioned that dream you once had. Indeed, I had a similar experience years ago and came to the same conclusion, that is, God is the One who must do everything to bring all of me to death. In a certain sense it should be relieving that it’s not necessary for us to know how it happens, yet the flesh dies hard… and struggles and struggles until we give up and let God do what needs to be done by Him without our intervention.

Regarding dying as a person you wrote,

“To me it is more about identification with the Beloved One.”

I fully agree with you. It appears to me that our focus shifts from the old self that thinks it’s the center of the universe (and tends to “possess” the Beloved) to the new self that rather loves to behold the Beloved than itself and thus, more and more, tries to please Him instead of needing Him to please its (old) self. Maybe it was not thaaat clear what I meant here, but I hope you’ll get it, though. If not, let me know! 😀

“It appears to me that our focus shifts from the old self that thinks it’s the center of the universe (and tends to “possess” the Beloved) to the new self that rather loves to behold the Beloved than itself and thus, more and more, tries to please Him instead of needing Him to please its (old) self.”

I fully agree, dear sister. It is all about who we love. In the Song of Solomon we watch this wonderful change come over the Shulamite woman. I would like to quote from an article written by George Davis:

“Her journey began with her first proclamation, which is found in chapter two, verse sixteen.

“My beloved is mine, and I am his. He browses among the lilies.” (2:16)

At first her relationship to her beloved is very one-sided. Her beloved had become a wonderful addition to her life. “My beloved is mine. . .” Although it is clear that she loves him, her love is out of order, in that early on she shows little consideration for her beloved’s feelings and desires.

Her second proclamation is found in chapter six, verse three.

“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. He browses among the lilies.” (6:3)

She is beginning to become aware of her beloved’s desires. She is starting to put His interests before her own. But still, she is very much alive to her self-love and quickly follows with her previous refrain – “my beloved is mine.” She is in transition, but she has not arrived yet.

At last, through much searching for her beloved and hungering for his embrace, love was set in right order in her heart. Her third proclamation reveals an even more perfect condition of heart, in which all thoughts of what she would get out of the relationship were gone.

“I am my beloved’s. His desire is toward me.” (7:10)

Once she had thought that her beloved was her possession, but now she has come to see that she is His. Once her love was egocentric, making her beloved a slave to her desires, but now she has finally come to value His desire above her own. She no longer lives for her own appetites but for his pleasure. From now on, all the energies of her life are spent with a view toward his delight and glory (7:13). “The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for you, O my beloved.” She is lost in his love. It has been a long journey but she has finally arrived.”~ http://awildernessvoice.com/RightlyLoveYou.html

It has been a real blessing to grow with you in Christ, Susanne.

“May the God of peace himself sanctify you [us] wholly; and may your [our] spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you [us] is faithful, and he will do it.” (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 RSVA)

Thanks so much for your encouraging comment! I know that I still had George’s excerpt you posted above in mind as I wrote my response about the bride’s initial inclination to possess the Bridegroom. It is truly a great piece George wrote there.

It has been a wonderful blessing for me too, first to come to know you spiritually, and then experiencing spiritual growth that always only comes from God together with you. Though thousands of miles apart, God’s Spirit knows no time and space, does He…? 😉

No, dear sister, time and space cannot dampen or curtail what God does in our hearts as we are ONE together in Christ. Oh, what fellowship, Oh what joy divine as we lean on His everlasting arms together! Be assured that He has many wonderful changes still in store for us as we abide in His love. ❤

“But as it is written, ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined the things that God has prepared for those who love him.’ But God has revealed those things to us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the deep things of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10 ISV)

Yes, that is one of my favorite Scriptures, Michael. So many deep mysteries are promised to us which we can only see with our eyes of the heart being enlightened. You are certainly right that He has countless surprises in store as we abide in His love together. ❤

Dear Cheryl, I was blessed by your comment and the dream you shared. You wrote,

“No one teaches this place of being joined to Christ in His death any more. It’s frowned upon even to raise such an issue. No one wants to hear it. But the Holy Spirit leads us into ALL truth, not just fragments of truth. And Jesus, in both His Cross and His resurrection is ALL truth.”

YES!!! All of Jesus is the Truth, not just His life and resurrection, but His death as well. Jesus is “the full meal deal.” We can not just pick and chose Christ and make of Him a “designer Christianity” as is the want of religious institutions today. A fragmented view of Christ has no power to fully transform us. Religion says, “Jesus died so we don’t have to.” Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.” (Luke 9:23-24 KJ2000). Paul said, “I die daily.” What a contrast!

You also wrote, ” To me it is more about identification with the Beloved One. Like many things in Christ, it is a mystery. I also believe it’s the difference between being ‘saved’ and becoming part of His Bride.”

You said it, “Identification with the Beloved.” We grow to love Him so much that we want to be with Him in His life, His sufferings and His death, not just in resurrection. This is the nature of real LOVE. We want ALL of the one we are in love with and would not dream of running away from them when things got bad. Peter ran, but John and the two Marys were there with Him through His whole ordeal on the cross and Mary Magdalen was the first to see Him in the power of His resurrection! Yes! THIS is the love of His Bride!

We must see and embrace Him AS He IS if we are to become like Him at His appearing. His life and death must become ours experientially. “Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready.” (Revelation 19:7 RSVA)

Susanne, Yes I understand and agree. “….. that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,” I do not claim to understand fully what this means, but am glad to know others also are beginning to get a glimpse of it as we journey into the fullness of Christ together.

Cheryl, I have enjoyed your comments on this thread. I was wondering if you saw above what I wrote about Paul’s prayer to know Christ’s sufferings and death besides His power? I also have been longing for 45 years to know what drove Paul to pray this way. What would drive a man to want in his own life the sufferings and death of Christ? So far this is what I have seen…

Michael, I had read it but have just read it again. What would drive anyone, in this case Paul, to pray such a prayer. I can’t say I know the answer for sure, but I could only say a perfect love. A little while ago I was thinking on the difference between unconditional love and covenant love and wrote this:

“When we are overtaken by covenant love, our fallen, corrupted idea of love becomes conformed to Christ, in whom, for the first time, we behold perfect love (1 John 4:18). Never again will we willingly injure or take advantage of the One who is the object of that love. No longer do we speak in terms of unconditional love, but we think, speak and act as those who have entered into holy covenant with another.

“My yoke is easy” Jesus said, ‘and my burden is light’. A covenant love relationship is not something forced upon us by One bent on controlling us. It is a holy place of mutual communion where we choose willingly to be yoked to our most Beloved, as He has chosen to yoke Himself to us. And without exception that yoking is going to be costly, because it’s going to be conditional on loving the Lord our God above all else, with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind. Things in and around us are going to change, and change is not always welcome by those who may be affected by it.”http://breadforthebride.com/2015/05/12/unconditional-love-or-not/

The passage you quoted has been instrumental in my relationship with Christ for many years. I love the deep sense of the NKJV version which says:

“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”

That laying hold of means to be apprehended, as when someone is arrested by a lawful authority….you might say taken captive in a way. I hold these things to be a mystery I don’t yet fully understand, but I know that there came a time when I was ‘laid hold of’ by Christ. Perhaps that is a ‘yoking’ with Him. I’m not talking here about being born again. It is something beyond the initial salvation experience.

I only know that my whole desire in this life has become to lay hold of Christ as He has laid hold of me. It means belonging to one another in the deepest sense I suppose….as I said I don’t have it worked out enough to articulate it well. But to answer your question why would someone pray such a prayer….I think only when someone catches such a glimpse of the Love that Christ is that they can’t turn back, they must press on, no matter where that leads, because their desire for Him is greater than their fear of pain or suffering or their desire for this world or anything of it.

I am certainly not one who desires suffering, I am not brave about any kind of pain, but I want to know Christ fully, and that means embracing Him on the Cross as well as in His resurrection. I can only determine to trust Him with where that may lead, and it is a decision I have to reaffirm in myself frequently. I pray always for Him to keep me, because I have learned I cannot keep myself in this place of pressing on. But neither can I go back. Perhaps that’s what Paul meant when he said ‘for me to live is Christ’. This is very much a journey in which I have not yet arrived, so excuse my ramblings!

Dear Cheryl, Your reply to me has opened my understanding a bit further about the nature of our love relationship with Christ. You wrote, “A covenant love relationship is not something forced upon us by One bent on controlling us. It is a holy place of mutual communion where we choose willingly to be yoked to our most Beloved, as He has chosen to yoke Himself to us.” This is very good! You use the term “covenant love.” I like that for this is the yoke that holds us to Him and He to us. We are called into a love relationship that is so deep that we have a love that wants ALL that the One we love IS and ALL that they go through and feel both good and bad. This kind of love can only come from God and that was the love that Paul had in his heart for Jesus when he wrote this verse in Philippians. Yes, dear sister, this is covenant love with our Beloved.

When we married our spouses we swore a covenant with them, though we had no clue what it was or what it would cost. Only now am I starting to understand what covenant love is, a love that wants ALL that the person IS and everything about them no matter what the cost. This is a rare thing between two humans for sure, but between man and God it is His desire that it be a reality in every way. Thank God He puts in us a new heart so it can happen.

Having read your response on Michael’s blog, too, I can tell you that it is not important to know where we stand. Indeed, when His light exposes our inner darkness, we often feel confused and even lose track of everything we might have surely known before. There are lots of doubts and confusion in those valleys of the shadow of death until God gives us eventually the faith of His Son Jesus Christ. It’s a long way, my sister, but we are not alone. We can encourage one another which you just did perfectly with writing your very kind comment. Thank you so much!!! 🙂

Seeing myself as such a plastic saint, too, which means I would have never chosen to die to self unless God had given me a foretaste of the things to come, I know today that God’s power alone can help us to pursue things our natural man would have never aimed at. As for the consequences of dying to self and being raised again to a really New Life IN Christ, we will finally see that we did not lose anything which had been worth being kept at all. Everything our old self gives into spiritual death, will be handed back to us on a completely new level as Jesus promised here,

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Mt 10:39 ESV)
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (Jn 10:10 ESV)

Dear Sister,

It has been a blessing to read and re-read this article __ and the comments __ of others, especially the dialog you and Michael had, which continues to challenge us to “come up hither” to new heights in realms of God’s Spirit.

It would be “too much” to comment on every detail of your writing. The excerpt that precedes this offering is where, by God’s grace, the focus of my attention has been drawn. I am convicted __ the following sentence could only be written by “inspiration:” “As for the consequences of dying to self and being raised again to a really New Life IN Christ, we will finally see that we did not lose anything which had been worth being kept at all.”

As an introduction and basis for this commentary it seems necessary to set forth a few statements that may help to clarify what is hoped to be relevant to our passing from death __ to Life:

Jesus did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill all that is written.

Jesus fulfilled the “substance” of every offering. (Not only the Sin Offering, but the Peace Offerings, the Burnt Offerings, the Grain Offerings, the Consecration Offerings, etc..)

It is a tremendous benefit to know what is the Law concerning the Offerings.

In order to fulfill every sacrifice and offering, it requires “multiple deaths and multiple resurrections.”

“And to love Him out of and with all the heart and with all the understanding [with the faculty of quick apprehension and intelligence and keenness of discernment] and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered intelligently (discreetly and having his wits about him), He said to him, You are not far from the kingdom of God. And after that no one ventured or dared to ask Him any further question.” (Mar 12:33-34 AMP)

“Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, O God.'” First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. (Heb 10:5-9 NIV)

To become “complete” in Christ, we are called to experience, “spiritually,” the offering of our “members” as a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, as our reasonable service of worship. This is part of the process of being conformed to the image of Christ __ by doing the Will of God.

We, all to often, find a “comfortable” place to settle down into our “Christian Life” and neglect those “crisis” elements that will cause us to continue to pursue “Christ,” who is our righteousness and to take hold of the eternal life to which we are called.

Regarding our “High Calling,” to become a kingdom of Priests, after the order of Melchizedek, it is helpful to have some understanding of the “type” given in scripture of how the “Priesthood” was established and validated according to the order of Aaron and his sons. The “Consecration Offering” was necessary for the old order and is also necessary for the New Man to fulfill, “spiritually/experientially,” for our “ministry,” as Priests before the LORD and to mankind.

Without going into every detail and not to view these things as, “doctrine or dogma,” let’s focus on the two rams of the consecration offering because these, at least for me, reveal two aspects of death and resurrection that are in a dimension of “sacrifice” that is as important to our growth and development as was our being crucified, with Christ, in the “Sin Offering.”

“You shall also take the one ram, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram; and you shall slaughter the ram and shall take its blood and sprinkle it around on the altar. “Then you shall cut the ram into its pieces, and wash its entrails and its legs, and put them with its pieces and its head. “You shall offer up in smoke the whole ram on the altar; it is a burnt offering to the LORD: it is a soothing aroma, an offering by fire to the LORD. “Then you shall take the other ram, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram. “You shall slaughter the ram, and take some of its blood and put it on the lobe of Aaron’s right ear and on the lobes of his sons’ right ears and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the big toes of their right feet, and sprinkle the rest of the blood around on the altar. “Then you shall take some of the blood that is on the altar and some of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it on Aaron and on his garments and on his sons and on his sons’ garments with him; so he and his garments shall be consecrated, as well as his sons and his sons’ garments with him. “You shall also take the fat from the ram and the fat tail, and the fat that covers the entrails and the lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys and the fat that is on them and the right thigh (for it is a ram of ordination), and one cake of bread and one cake of bread mixed with oil and one wafer from the basket of unleavened bread which is set before the LORD; and you shall put all these in the hands of Aaron and in the hands of his sons, and shall wave them as a wave offering before the LORD. “You shall take them from their hands, and offer them up in smoke on the altar on the burnt offering for a soothing aroma before the LORD; it is an offering by fire to the LORD. (Exo 29:15-25 NASB)

For the sake of time and space, a short list of things to consider will be offered:

The first ram is the “self life” we all struggle to “give up.” Notice that nothing was to be held back. It is a burnt offering to the LORD.

The other ram represents the “New Life” __ given by God through Christ, or “the NEW SELF, the “Inner Man,” or New Creation Man. It is the second ram that is offered as a ram of ordination, and it was the blood from that Ram, taken from the altar and mingled with oil that was applied to the ear lobes, right thumbs and right toes of Aaron and his sons and also sprinkled on them and their garments. This was necessary to grant them access into the Holy Place and begin “Ministry.”

It is from the “Second Ram” that elements were taken, along with the “cakes/bread” and put into the hands of Aaron and his sons.

I encourage those who are reading this to read Numbers 18, to note the difference between the “Consecration” of Aaron and his sons, and the “Dedication” of the Levites, who were also part of the Levitical Order of Priests.

In closing I would pose the question, “Are we dedicated priests, or consecrated priests?” Let me share an example:

If I were a very accomplished musician who, before being born from above, played contemporary music in worldly establishments and then determined that my abilities were God given, after a new birth experience, and from that moment __ I would only play religious music in “godly” establishments, have I dedicated my life and work or consecrated it? If I am truly consecrated to God and have given to Him all that He has given me, would I be willing to never play another note __ until God put the attributes He had blessed me with, back into my hands, which were then placed on His altar?

As an educated writer who is inspired to write articles, poems, blogs, etc., that are God centered and Christ centered, have you “dedicated” your time, gifts, intellect and talents to the Lord’s work or are all those things that God has given into your hands, offered back to Him on the altar?

Each of us are called to come to this crisis experience where we AGAIN, face another aspect of “Dying and Resurrection.” Have we given back to HIM our New Life IN Christ?

Tom – I like your musician illustration, thank you for that. I think Hannah, Samuel’s mother, is a perfect picture of someone who understood consecration. She gave her son to the Lord — she understood to whom he belonged; she said “I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord and stay there forever.” Then she exulted in the Lord. As for the musician (or any talent we may wish to ‘use for the Lord’) — I would go so far as to say what God really asks of us to let it go completely so that we are fixed not on “what does God want me to do with this?” but to fix our gaze on Christ alone. There is no other way to become conformed (and transformed) to His likeness so that we will be responding to His desires for us. He will apply the cross to my life as I seek Him every day; He will bring the crises and the blessings as I need them in order to grow to know Him and to be like Him. As with Hannah, our blessings could be like her abundance of children; or like Paul the blessings come through the grace He pours out in a life of pain and suffering. The latter is more likely for us since this is what the Lord declared for followers of Christ. Beholding Him for our growth, for the pleasure of the Father, and for God’s glory is our calling. Do I believe that if I empty my hands of every desire that comes from my flesh (even the “good” things) He can be trusted? It seems like every day we are standing before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, choosing whom we will believe. His grace nourising our faith by the work of the Spirit — He will do it all. Know Him, rest in His goodness. What a life!!

Lori, you wrote:“There is no other way to become conformed (and transformed) to His likeness so that we will be responding to His desires for us. He will apply the cross to my life as I seek Him every day; He will bring the crises and the blessings as I need them in order to grow to know Him and to be like Him.”

Yes! I agree. Paul said, “I die daily!” Everything that God has blessed us with whether it be a natural talent of a spiritually inspired work., or even our relationship as we know it today with Christ.. It all has to be offered up to Him with an open hand every day. Jesus put it this way, “Apart from me you can do NOTHING!” There is a grossly false teaching that says that the gifts and callings we have as Christians can not be taken away form us by God. To this I politely say, “Bovine Feces!” The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. And like Paul said, “Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. FOR HIS SAKE I SUFFER THE LOSS OF ALL THINGS, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ (Philippians 3:8 RSVA – emphasis added)

And I know that Susanne will agree with this. God gives us something to write and to share and we share it. Then He will be silent for sometimes weeks at a time. He was silent with me for 14 years one time! Another example in our lives is musical talent. Susanne is an accomplished pianist and has a beautiful voice and has led worship in churches, but she now has a piano in her flat that collects nicknack and dust. Upon seeing a picture of it one time I asked her if she still played it and she said she did not… no anointing to do so any longer.

I also have played a flute in church worship teams in the past and have not played it in years for the same reason. It was given me to worship HIM and not to entertain people. The same goes for our website and blogs! The moment God tells me to shut them down, they are gone! So you see when it comes to who I am in Christ and what He has for me to do, I die daily… it is a living sacrifice that never leaves the altar.

Thanks for you comment here, Michael. Yes, I agree with you since you know about those things the Lord took away and I truly do not miss one of them. Also, everything you described here regarding writing and blogging is true for me too. Only a little correction, I never led worship in churches, I only was part of a worship team.

Susanne, I am with you. What the Lord has given me in the place of being on a worship team with my flute, writing on a blog or even writing books that have blessed people around the world… Being given fellowship with a handful of dear saints who seek the depths of His grace and love with HIM… THAT is worth more to me than any spiritual gifts or natural talents that once set me apart in Christ’s body. Like Paul said, “Prophesies will pass away, tongues will cease, knowledge will pass away…” for these things at best are imperfect. But God’s love is perfect and when it comes into us those lesser things we once thought were so necessary… they pass away and they mean nothing any longer. Oh, dear sister! The love of God! These other things pass away once His light of love shines into our hearts. “So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13 RSVA)

Indeed, I do not know for how long you have been reading my blog posts, but I can tell you – as for your question about sacrifices – that I lost my lifelong love for writing quite some time ago. If God had not nudged me from time to time to still publish a blog post or a poem, I would have given up on it completely. And even if I write, I cannot write what I want to, instead, I have a blank mind that is filled by God – or not. Sometimes he decides to give me something and then, after writing, He does not want to see it published. That was the way with the books I wrote in the past and never published because God did not want it. Why so? Only He knows.

PS
As for the formatting problems you had in your replies, I can only say that bold letters and italics always work in comments, yet no “(pre)code” formatting. It always messes up the responses as Michael and I experienced several times before too.

Dear Susanne,
I trust you don’t think I was questioning your “consecration.” On the contrary, it’s evident to me that, all that you have and are have been placed on God’s altar and that what you’re publishing is what He has inspired, and put into your heart and mind.
I identify with you wholly concerning writings that have gone no further than our living room __ even though they may have been written by the urging of the Holy Spirit.
Although we have only been following your writings for a short time, I can perceive the working of God’s Word as you continue to follow on to know Him, intimately and personally. You’re a testimony to His love, mercy and grace.
I’ll go back to read more of your earlier writings. Lois & I will read them together.

Michael — not sure if you misunderstood me. I read my post over and see that I left out the part where God can give us freedom to use our natural talents to serve Him (just as He gave Hannah children for her to raise and love in her home after Samuel was born). My point is that we cannot allow use of talents to get in the way of wholehearted attention to Him, and response to whatever it is He asks of us. As you know, the way the organized church functions today, this is no easy thing. There is such a celebrity culture these days.
Beholding Him and enjoying His fellowship needs to be first above all — that does not mean He will not use our talents at some point. I’m grateful for many who use their consecrated talents —- I need my worship music! And I constantly feast on the writings of men and women (mostly writers from the 19th century) who were led to write down the things the Lord taught them.
I hope you play the flute for the Lord in the privacy of your home — it would be a shame to lose those flute chops! (My daughter played the flute in her high school days and I sorely miss hearing it.) If I was the least bit musical I would sing at the top of my lungs for Him from the privacy of my home — but even I can’t stand what that sounds like!! And I would LOVE it if I could play an instrument for His ears only… such a wonderful way to express our hearts to a God who loves beauty.

Lori, sometimes the Lord really takes away from us what He gave us before. The Spirit leads as He wills. Thinking of your Hannah example, I had two children and both were consecrated to the Lord. My daughter lives, my son had to die before he could live here on earth. Why? Only God knows…
If you love worship music, it is a sign you should keep it. But if God takes it away, you won’t miss it at all. God’s presence is more than any blessing He might bestow on us. And if He gives such a blessing back to us later, it won’t be the same thing since then our heart will belong to Him alone, not only to His gifts.

Lori and Susanne, what precious sisters you both are! Yes, Susanne, if He takes things and people (even our children) away from us in this life, what He will give back in their place in the future will be so much more wonderful that those things which were lost will start to loose the place they once had. Susanne, you will see David your son again, and he will be so beautiful that you will no longer remember his loss.

As Jesus said, “And everyone that has forsaken houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.” (Matthew 19:29 KJ2000)

Truly the love of God He has put in my heart and those around me is the greatest gift I have ever known.

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let the one hearing say, Come! And let the one who is thirsty come. And he willing, let him take of the Water of Life freely.
(Revelation 22:17 MKJV)

Lori,
Thank you for your comment. Samuel is a beautiful example of a consecrated priest __ who is also a type of the Order of Priests of the New Covenant. How true that His grace nourishing our faith by the work of the Spirit __ He will do it all.

Grace & Peace to You and Yours

P.S. Sorry for the terrible formating.. Don’t know why it turned out that way.

I KNOW that God led me here tonight! I haven’t been doing much reading and I just haven’t had anything to write myself, so I have been hanging back. But, this article is speaking loudly to me! It is very timely!

Death to self is an excruciating thing to experience, at least it is for me. Gone is my self-confidence, gone is all of my independance, gone is my trust in myself, I most certainly do not even know who I am not really. But, I have not lost my faith in God nor do I blame Him for the things that have happened to me these last many years.

Today, I am broken! My health is broken! My inner self is shattered! My loved ones have for the most part turned their backs on me and want nothing to do with me, but it gets better. Now I am told that I have more serious problems with my health, what really!? My energy, and my strength are nearly gone, inside I am exhausted and I wonder how much more can I take on; it is all so overwhelming!

Physical, mental, emotional, social and even spiritual pain are all weighing heavily upon me, so much so that my strength is all but gone; no light at the end of my tunnel at least not yet. But, when I do see that light at the end it will be my Jesus coming for me to take me home to be with Him forevermore! I am longing for that day! Looking unto Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith! Come Lord Jesus!

I am glad that this post was timely for you. But I am sorry to hear of your problems in so many areas. The fact that your health has been getting worse and worse, that is truly saddening, my dear sister. 😦 Alas, I can only pray for you…what else could I do?

I was wondering a bit about you saying that your loved ones turned their backs on you. Did they tell you why so? Any reason? Do you believe it might have to do with your faith? 🙄

This post was just on the sidebar of the recent ones being read. What a timely piece of encouragement once again, Susanne. Without being able to mention any details at this time, I can say that I have entered into the mother of all crisis – in the natural this one is totally IMPOSSIBLE. That’s just what God loves, impossibilities. Out of the impossible come forth untainted miracles from God.

I cling to several promises the Lord has dropped years and months ahead of time in the form of dreams and scriptures, kind of like the peas in the story of Hansel and Gretel so they could find their way back. He has been so gracious, and He obviously knew that it would require some “helps” to anchor me through this storm. When I feel the darkness envelope my mind with doubts and fears, the Holy Spirit wells up inside of me and roars like a lion “Jesus IS Lord! over that thing”. He is really comforting me in a way I have never experienced before.

There comes a time in our life, when we will run out of “our” own faith and we need HIS faith. I feel that is what is going on here, I am running on God’s faith (perhaps this is the gift of faith), because this strength in me is not my natural strength. I truly praise Him for that.

I would like to mention something, and hope it will not be offensive to anyone. And I am aware that whatever I put forth of the spirit, will be thoroughly tested and challenged in my life. That is what makes me hesitant in speaking too much. 🙂 It’s that judgement Paul mentioned in his epistles, and the very means that adds grace to our exhortations for others.

Anyway, every one of us who are followers of Jesus will have to endure many trials in the course of this earth walk. This is one of the promises we have been given at the outset of Him calling us to be His followers and witnesses. I feel that many of us (and I include myself) here in the western world have not been taught properly on the “being a witness” and “overcomer” parts of the gospel and Revelation.

In North America, it is commonly believed that to be a witness of Jesus means to “quote the historical parts of the Bible that speak about Jesus”, you know like His death and resurrection for example. But is that really a witness to Jesus? Think about it.

What does it mean to be a witness? Is it not an eye-witness account of what a person has seen or experienced? The way I understand this is, I can only witness of what I have SEEN Jesus do in my life. I was not there when He died on the cross, therefore I cannot claim to be a witness of that event. But I do know that He is alive, because of what He has allowed me to see with my own eyes. 🙂

So, I think we need to change our vision a little bit and embrace our trials as opportunities to WITNESS Jesus working for us, rather than living in the hope that we would either quickly die during a trial or get raptured, so we can go “home” and be in heavenly rest. 🙂

Jesus wants overcomers ON this earth, for the purpose of showing forth His glory IN the earth. We are really no good to Him in heaven, because He needs no witnesses there.

Ok, now that I have said this openly, you just know the devil will come and say, PROVE IT! If the Holy Spirit moves upon you, remember me in prayer, please. 🙂

What you shared regarding witnessing is so true. What can we witness but what we have experienced on our own? Quoting parts of the Bible does not need a witness, but only someone who can read and pass on what has been read. It is not even necessary to be a Christian to do that, I believe.

As for impossibilities, yes, it is so true that I have found myself daily in more and more situations seeing myself constrained to admit “I can NEVER do this on my own.” Without God’s help I am ALWAYS helpless until He finally gives me what I have asked for in prayer. And sometimes He needs quite a long time to do so (in my own view). But He always helps.

You may know that you are in my prayers, Elli, since I do know how quickly Satan is with coming in and spreading doubt and fear in my own mind. In fact, you didn’t choose one of the easily digestible posts with this one, did you…? 😉

Susanne wrote: “You may know that you are in my prayers, Elli, since I do know how quickly Satan is with coming in and spreading doubt and fear in my own mind. In fact, you didn’t choose one of the easily digestible posts with this one, did you…?”

Thank you so much, Susanne…I kind of get, that you understand what I mean, because of the subject matter of your posts. 🙂

As for mine, when do I ever write ‘easily digestible’ posts? And I want to be careful in saying this for it can sound so puffed up, but I have never been a person to occupy in shallow or surface waters, even on a social level. I tend to go right away to the ‘deep end’, even tho I don’t know how to swim. (As a child in swimming lessons, I was very timid and upon the teachers suggestion to all go to the deep end, well I did too…because I was afraid to have my inability to swim exposed… and I nearly drowned.) 😦

So, I have a tendency to write from the position of spiritual “current events” in my life. Right now, I am in this very deep pool and the thing is… when I write out my thoughts, it sounds like I am “preaching” AT people, but in truth I am “sounding it out” to myself, to encourage myself FIRSTLY. I don’t have anyone here (physically) speaking spiritual things to me, so I have to speak to myself. Hehe

I once heard a man speak (Dan Mohler is his name), and he was sharing about how many personal Shadrach, Mechach and Abednego stories he has already garnered from his own life, and that in time we too should have our own stories to point to. And that the amazing stories in the Bible serve as stepping stones to that place. Another one is Henry Gruver, very encouraging to hear him share what the Lord has done in others, but mainly the many many times God has intervened in his own physical trials and that of his 13 children. You can only imagine what all can go wrong raising 13 children. So yes, he is a wellspring to the glory of God.

So also concerning my own trial and what you all are enduring. I call it my very own “bible story” being written as we speak. As the reoccurring point seems to be, it is not good enough to have a second hand story, even if it is a bible story like Abraham and Isaac or the 3 Hebrews in the fiery furnace. There comes a time in every believer’s life, where that same faith comes under such same intense heat (7 times hotter). How are we to endure to to end, which is promised to get even worse… if our faith fails now?

Again, I apologize if my comments sound disjointed… my thoughts go all over the place when I write and I don’t want to miss any, so I jot them down as they come.

Also, I don’t always remember to tick the ‘notify’ boxes below, so it might be that I don’t reply to some comments because I can’t remember where I said something. blush

May you all get a rushing of Holy Spirit overcoming wind under your wings today!

Oh, this is such a good message from George Mueller… it speaks so clearly of what I had tried to say in my previous comment. Susanne, if you find it fitting here.. please feel welcome to add it to this comment string. 🙂

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“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
(John 3:16-17 ESV)

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